TEHRAN –The Munich Cinema Iran Festival, a festival of Iranian films, has announced the lineup for its 8th edition, which will take place in the German city from July 13 to 16.

“I Am Forough” by Jahangir Kosari, “Beyond the Fences of Lalehzar” by Amen Feizabadi, “Titi” by Ida Panahandeh and “Subtraction” by Mani Haqiqi are among the feature films to be screened at the festival. 

“I Am Forough” tells the story of the prominent poet and filmmaker Forough Farrokhzad from her youth in the 1940s to her early death in 1967 and reflects her biography in the current situation and the ongoing desire for emancipation, self-determination and freedom.

“Beyond the Fences of Lalehzar” tells the story of Lalehzar Street in Tehran, which was the city’s entertainment district with movie theaters in the first half of the 20th century, however, today the cinemas are closed and small electronics shops are struggling to survive.

“Titi” is about Ebrahim, a physicist who is about to prove a thesis about the end of the world. He meets Titi, a weird surrogate mother who wants to preserve humanity and make a room of her own.

Ebrahim is suffering from a terminal illness in a hospital where Titi works. Taking a liking to Titi, he explains his work to her, and she believes that it is essential to the future of the planet. When he slips into a coma, his wife demands that his papers be discarded, but Titi takes them home, where her husband lines his rabbit cages with them. Eight months pregnant as a surrogate for a childless couple, Titi wanders into the sea, where her mystical powers manage to bring the professor back to life. As he searches for the papers she took, he enters Titi’s world, and nothing will ever be the same.

“Subtraction” follows driving instructor Farzaneh, when she spots her husband on the streets of Tehran, even though he is supposed to be out of town on a business trip, she naturally suspects the worst. Following him, Farzaneh’s fears are seemingly confirmed when she sees him visiting another woman. With that woman’s husband also suspecting something is awry, the situation erupts into violence. Yet, all is not quite what it seems.

The lineup also includes “Killing the Eunuch Khan” by Abed Abest and “Absence” by Ali Mosaffa.

“Killing the Eunuch Khan” is about a serial killer that uses his victims to kill more victims. In this film set during the war between Iran and Iraq, a father lives with his two daughters in a big, strangely haunted house in a nearly deserted city close to the border. 

One day, he leaves the girls at home alone in order to participate in a funeral ceremony. That same day, the city is struck by a bombing raid, and a bomb falls in his garden. From that point on, some sort of ghostly vibration unhinges his own reality, and the world of the dead seems to mingle with the world of the living.

“Absence” is about Ruzebeh, who travels from Tehran, far from his troubled family life, to Prague, Czech Republic, immersing himself in an investigation that follows his father’s path as a communist expatriate in Czechoslovakia, in his quest to understand better his father, who started a new life in Eastern Europe after the 1953 coup. Yet each clue he finds deepens the mystery surrounding the man he thought he knew.

The festival has also dedicated a section to the works by young Iranian video artists as well as a section to the short films. 

A number of documentary films including “The Football Aficionado” co-directed by Sharmin Mojtahedzadeh and Paliz Khoshdel, and “Woodgirls – A Duet for a Dream” by Azadeh Bizargiti will also go on screen at the festival. 

Photo: Elnaz Shakerdoost acts in a scene from “Titi” by Ida Panahandeh.

ABU/